(Ecns.cn)--Since early November, six outlaws have surrendered to the police 18 years after fleeing on suspicion of killing Jiesang Suonandajie, the former deputy secretary of the Zhi Duo County Party Committee in Qinghai Province who fought against a band of poachers to protect rare local animals, but eventually laid down his life in the remote Tibetan region of Kekexili (Hoh Xil).
"He wore black leather, was handsome, strong, frank and straightforward," Li Haiqing, one of the fugitives who gave himself up last Tuesday, recalled Suonandajie when he confronted him in the winter of 1994.
On January 16 that year, Suonandajie and his patrol team hunted down a bandit gang, captured 20 poachers and took over two trucks loaded with hides of Tibetan antelopes on the ninth day of their twelfth patrol of Kekexili.
Exhausted from guarding the captured poachers day and night, Suonandajie was suddenly stricken with gastroenteritis two days later. Worse still, the truck he was driving lagged behind in the evening due to a flat tire.
When Suonandajie went to check the tire, three poachers struggled to free themselves, jumped out of the truck and tried to bring Suonandajie under control.
Once a shooting champion of the county, Suonandajie had sensed the danger and pulled the trigger of his gun before he was attacked. As a result, one poacher was shot dead and another was injured.
"Ma Zhongxiao has been shot. You guys come out and shoot him. Hurry!" the injured man told the other poachers in the truck. In a minute, eleven poachers stood in front of Suonandajie and fired upon him wildly.
"It was very dark. I had never felt that cold," recalled Ma Shenghua, one of the poachers, who still clearly remembers that night.
As soon as the gunshots stopped, all the men ran away without checking whether Suonandajie was alive or not.
Meanwhile, Suonandajie's patrol members in another truck were also attacked by poachers and tied to the truck for a whole night.
They broke loose and ran to Suonandajie the next morning, only to find their leader frozen into an ice sculpture. With a bullet hitting one of his leg arteries, Suonandajie had bled to death.
Brokenhearted, the other patrolmen tried to drive Suonandajie's body to the county. However, their truck got stuck in mud, and they could not get out of the wilderness until four days later.
"That was his last trip to Kekexili," Suonandajie's assistant recalled, adding that besides cracking down on poaching, Suonandajie had also aimed to investigate the landforms of Kekexili and prospect mineral resources there, especially gold.
Since the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of outsiders have rushed to Kekexili to dig gold illegally, and also hunted antelopes and yaks.
"Everybody came for gold, but nobody got punished for breaking related laws," pointed out Jin Yanzu, who was appointed Secretary-General of the Working Committee of the central western area of China. "Kekexili was not an uninhabited area, but it was a lawless region."
"Suonandajie wanted to set up a nature reserve to protect the Tibetan antelopes and meanwhile apply for government funding," Jin noted. "He also hoped to make profits for his fellows by properly exploring Kekexili and effectively managing its resources."
Suonandajie's death was brought to the attention of the whole nation. In 1995, he was conferred the title of "Environment Defender" by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the State Forestry Administration.
That same year, Kekexili was designated a provincial-level nature reserve, and a state-level reserve in 1997. "Suonandajie sacrificed his life for this reserve," Jin stressed.
Moved and inspired, not only Suonandajie's families and relatives, but also many volunteers in eastern provinces, have taken over the job to protect the world's last frontier and the endangered animals and precious resources on it.
Suonandajie's two sons are now working at a local police station, responsible for patrolling the Kekexili Nature Reserve. Though reluctant to talk about their father, the younger son revealed that "they will do what their father had done before."
"Without Suonandajie, I may not have gotten involved in environmental protection," explained Yang Xin, a volunteer who has helped establish the "Suonandajie Nature Reservation Station," a position to fight against poachers. Statistics show that by now over 300 volunteers have joined the station.
